• Park near your building in a highly visible and well-lit area.
• Park near the parking attendant, if there is one, or near the stairs or a well-lit exit.
• Use the main building entrance – avoid rear or secluded exits.
• Keep your valuables, including purses and recent purchases, out of sight.
• Lock the doors and roll up windows once you are in the vehicle. Have a plan ahead of time. Know where you can go for safety and how to call for help if necessary.
• Have your car keys or building keys ready in your hand.
• Carry a whistle or other personal alarm.
• Have the keys ready to unlock the door as you get near the vehicle or door. As you approach your car, look around, inside and even glance underneath for people who may be present. If you are suspicious, walk away. Go to a safe place and call for help.
• If you have to walk alone, have a co-worker watch you from a window. Wave to them on the way to your vehicle, even if no one is watching to create the illusion that someone has your back.
• Stay on well-lit streets, and in the center of the sidewalk. Stay away from hiding spots such as bushes, doorways, alleys and parked cars. Cross the road if necessary.
• Always be alert to your surroundings. Walk with confidence. Keep your head up and look around. Look directly at people but do not stare at them. Trust your instincts when you feel something is not right.

In addition to knowing the do’s of parking lot safety, it’s important to know the do not’s:

• Do not dig in your purse or bag.
• Do not wear headphones or engage in distracting cell phone conversations.
• Do not carry heavy briefcases or bags that might get in the way.
• Do not carry any type of weapon, as it could be used against you and may even be illegal.

For more information or to receive a customized, full site safety plan, contact the building safety experts of Vanguard Resources.

By their very nature, accidents are any unplanned, undesired event, or incident, that result in personal injury or illness, property damage, environmental harm or daily routine disruption. At its simplest level, accidents result from the amount of energy or hazardous material that a person cannot safely absorb. While some accidents may create minimal disruptions, others can throw off an entire organization’s day-to-day work schedule.

Each accident has its own basic or root causes. Once you discover these accident initiators, applying appropriate accident prevention tactics becomes more simplified and easier to justify and implement. Regardless of the situation, it is important to investigate and report each accident that occurs onsite.

Charting and analyzing accident and near-miss incident trends not only determine what happened, but also what factors contributed. Charting these events will assist facility leadership to develop methods that diminish accidents across the board, typically reducing Workers’ Compensation costs and enhancing the overall safety of all individuals in the workplace. In the end, identifying accidents’ root causes increases overall worksite efficiency, safety and moral.

Unfortunately, employees often refrain from reporting and investigating accidents out of fear of embarrassment, discipline, loss of position or employment termination. However, problems like bias and report falsification can occur when only one individual takes responsibility for on-the-job accident and incident reporting, harming the entire organization as a result. Avoid this by training and preparing your entire facility team to identify, investigate and report job-related accidents. Educate them on the importance of incident and accident reporting and prepare them to handle witness reports with discretion and accuracy, following them up quickly with the appropriate corrective actions. Not only will this responsibility standard facilitate accurate action and accident handling, it also satisfies the incident recording standards of internal labor and management unions or institutions.

For a detailed analysis of your facility’s accident investigation, reporting and analysis techniques, please contact the experts of Vanguard Resources.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has recommended that all homes and businesses stock emergency supply kits that take into consideration both minor emergencies and worst case scenarios. FEMA typically recommends preparing at least three days worth of supplies for all individuals onsite. However, facility leaders must carefully examine the needs of their staff, building and situation to accurately and effectively develop an emergency supply kit that matches their needs. At the most basic level, a good emergency supply kit should contain:

• At least one gallon of water per person, per day, for at least three days
• Non-perishable food, at least a three day supply per person
• National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Weather Radio with tone alert & extra batteries
• Battery-powered or hand crank radio
• Flashlight & extra batteries
• First aid kit
• Help whistle
• Dust mask
• Duct tape
• Moist towelettes, garbage bags & plastic ties for personal sanitation
• Wrench or pliers to turn off utilities
• Can opener for any canned food items
• Local maps

You may also consider including (depending upon your facility, staff and visitors):

• Prescription medications & glasses
• Infant formula & diapers
• Pet food & water for pets
• Important documents, stored in a waterproof container
• Emergency reference materials & books
• Sleeping bags, warm blankets or additional bedding materials
• Changes of clothing
• Household chlorine bleach & medicine dropper
• Fire extinguisher
• Matches, in a waterproof container
• Feminine supplies
• Mess kits
• Paper & writing utensils

Ensure that there are enough of these kits placed at various, easily accessible points throughout your building or campus. Assure total emergency preparedness by hosting an emergency process orientation workshop. There you can acquaint your staff with how, when and where to use the items in your facility’s emergency kit and introduce them to other important emergency policies and procedures.

For a detailed, individual safety and emergency preparedness consultation, please contact the facility management experts at Vanguard Resources.

• Up to 40% of businesses affected by a natural or human-caused disaster never reopen.
• Customers expect timely service. A significant delay may cause them to turn to a competitor.
• Larger businesses have begun to ask suppliers about their preparedness. They will avoid the risks associated with forming a partnership with an unprepared organization.
• Insurance is only a partial solution. It won’t replace all losses, especially customers.
• Many large-scale disasters may overwhelm public aid resources that can potentially cause assistance delivery delays for your organization.
• News travels fast. Perceptions differ from reality. Quick communication to customers and stakeholders can help keep a damaged perception form spreading.
• Nearly 62% of Ad Council survey respondents said they currently lack a business emergency plan.

In a disaster situation, not all risks can be covered by insurance. For some factors, emergency preparedness may prove the only effective method for disaster management. Your emergency preparedness policy should be consistent with your facility’s mission, roles and responsibilities and:

• Protect the safety of employees, visitors, contractors and other individuals potentially at risk from facility hazards.
• Account for the safety and protection of disabled or functionally impaired individuals.
• Maintain customer service standards before, during and after crises events to the highest degree possible by minimizing overall business interruptions.
• Protect facilities, physical assets and electronic information.
• Prevent environmental contamination.
• Protect the organization’s brand, image and reputation.

Although the development of your organization’s particular emergency preparedness program will be an ongoing work in progress its goals and priorities should not. Ensure these benchmarks can be achieved correctly, at incident, by organizing your facility’s employees around a clear and soundly structured emergency preparedness plan. Assign leadership roles in case of incidence to the correct individuals and supply them with the correct training and emergency preparedness plan understanding to carry out their roles swiftly, intuitively and efficiently. With your best leadership, proper emergency preparedness methodology study and correct preparation initiatives, your facility may avoid encountering the worst, lasting disaster outcomes.

For customized assistance or feedback on developing a viable emergency preparedness program, please contact Vanguard Resources’ facility management experts.

The Occupational Health and Safety Association has outlined the primary protective equipment standards for facility management teams to employee. These standards govern safety enhancements across a variety of industries taking into account several different kinds of worksites. Although engineering and administrative controls use still remains an efficiency-enhancing job training priority, facility managers must take care not to neglect important daily work safety practices.

Assess your worksite and determine what, if any, personal protective equipment your team will require training on. Make sure any individual that will need to use these tools has an awareness of:

• Proper equipment use
• When equipment use will prove necessary
• When to use which type of equipment
• Each piece of equipment’s realistic limitations
• Proper application
• Proper maintenance

Using or wearing the proper protective gear can prevent head injuries, foot/leg injuries, eye/face injuries, hearing loss, hand injuries, bodily injuries or contaminate inhalation. For facility managers, team safety is one of the job consideration that cannot be ignored or avoided.

For a full, detailed safety analysis or consultation for your worksite, please contact the facility management experts of Vanguard Resources.

Although industry leaders like the American Society for Healthcare Engineering have begun to implement educational programs like this in schools, a distinct overall lack still remains. As a result, individual facility management leaders must challenge themselves to take initiative and proactively implement their own succession planning programs.

There are a few critical factors you should consider when structuring your buildings’ site-specific succession plan:

• How to improve the company’s bench strength in key positions
• Identifying high potential employees and devising strategies to retain their talent
• Obstacles to finding qualified candidates outside the organization
• The unexpected loss of key employees

The first step on the succession planning journey is assessing the critical positions—from leadership to mechanics and technicians—that are candidates for succession planning due to the incumbent being eligible for either promotion or retirement. The next step is using this information to determine where the future shortfalls will occur.

Once you have identified these potential loose ends, review the content and accuracy of the job descriptions for the critical positions. The job description should include the experience, skills and attributes that the position DOES demand, while also excluding superfluous, unrequired over-qualifiers.

Over time many job descriptions become personalized and contain requirements that may have been tailored to someone who once was in the position. Likewise, they may also have been tailored to a workplace culture that no longer exists. If the requirements are overstated or inaccurate, correct them. Otherwise, many truly qualified candidates may be eliminated.

In an ideal world, organizations would grow employees’ potential, grooming lower ranking staff members to fill key leadership and staff positions later down the line, ensuring the future and reducing turnover. However to do this, facility management

leadership must re-evaluate existing succession planning processes, or develop effective processes where none exist. The end result should effectively accomplish:

• Education for the organization on new succession planning trends
• The development of a strong process to build bench strength
• Integrated succession planning that ties easily into other processes of talent management including performance management, training and development, compensation and assessment
• Linking succession planning to competency management with a reporting and analytics component
• Integration with career development tools.
• Automated processes for greater efficiency and fewer operational risks, when possible

To accomplish the above goals most efficiently, develop both a top-to-bottom and a bottom-up approach for succession planning. The top-to-bottom approach would be the buy-in by senior management to grow employees through the identified processes. The bottom-up approach would entail the efforts of the department director to promote the growth of key employees at grass roots.

Once a succession planning program is developed and implemented, engage the organization’s high performer, promotion candidates. Focus on preparing them for anticipated senior staffing and leadership positions. Do this by using strategies like leadership development programs, executive coaching, lateral transfers for increased knowledge and experience and mentoring.

In the case of a pending position opening for which there is no internal candidate, nor the time to train one, recommendations must be made to senior management as to the best course and timing of action. When hiring, always attempt to ensure future promotion potential, with minimal training.

The reality of the future is that, currently, organizations are not prepared to staff senior staffing and leadership positions, and as a result, often find themselves in uncomfortable and sometimes costly situations when hiring becomes necessary. The time required to train or recruit a replacement can be critical. Consequently, it must be an organizational priority to train employees, improve staff development programs and expose key leaders to senior management opportunities.

Effective succession planning will not magically occur without the prioritization and buy-in of senior management. Nor will it successfully occur overnight or without process-induced or technological challenges.

Succession planning can no longer be a covert operation if organizations want to retain good employees, reduce turnover, improve bench strength and ensure highly motivated and talented staff and leaders. It must be overt in the sense that succession planning it must be placed on the leading edge of priorities to grow the organization.

Good leadership and competent staff are works in progress, and the process must be ongoing.

For additional insights regarding developing effective succession planning procedures or to discuss a customized plan for your facility, contact Vanguard Resources’ facility management experts directly.

What can hospitals do to fill the gaps and maintain congruent, quality leadership? Organizations that fail to plan for the inevitable can be caught off guard by the resulting disruption within facilities management and plant operations. Avoid disaster and incorporate succession planning into your facility management plan.

Succession planning is the preemptive process of identifying key positions and implementing a program that ensures constant development of employees to fill the positions in order to minimize disruption. Best-in-class organizations have maintained their certification caliber by doing this for years.

If your health care organization has not already, make now the time to give succession planning top priority. Every health care leader from the CEO to the facilities manager faces two harsh realities in securing a high performing workforce in today’s economy:

• Baby Boomer Retirement
• Trained Labor Market Decline

To stay competitive, an organization must develop or improve a formal process of succession planning that includes the following fundamentals:

• Identify key positions or roles for succession or replacement planning.
• Define the competencies and motivational profile required for the identified positions.
• Assess current employees against these criteria with an eye on their possible future roles.
• Identify pools of talent that could potentially fill and perform strongly in key roles.
• Prepare employees to transition into key roles, primarily through the right set of experiences.

These keys to success are necessary for any effective succession plan. The American Society for Healthcare Engineering (ASHE) recognized this several years ago and enacted their own succession plan starting from the ground up.

ASHE realized that succession planning in facilities management was a growing issue. As a solution, they fostered a leadership development program designed to strengthen the diminishing talent pool. Working with a growing number of universities, ASHE developed a program that places student interns in volunteer hospitals to introduce the students to the field and supplement their education with real-world knowledge of health care facilities management. The desired result is that more graduates will choose hospital facilities management as a career. Additionally, ASHE is working to interest universities in health care facilities management courses as an addition to existing curriculums for a graduate career path. The program is growing, but it will take time to potentially fill the void. Even with programs such as this developing, the current talent gap remains large and justifies hospitals to focus more heavily on formal succession planning for facilities management.

Plans like the one ASHE put into play demonstrate great insight into the future of facility management. For additional insights regarding developing effective succession planning procedures or to discuss a customized plan for your facility, contact Vanguard Resources’ facility management experts directly.

1. Develop a firm understanding of the Joint Commission scoring process, including Level 1: Immediate Life Threats, Level 2: Situation Decision Rules, direct impact requirements and indirect impact requirements.
2. Use a Building Maintenance Program (BMP) throughout the year. Some examples are LS.02.01.10 EP-5, EP-6; LS.02.01.20 EP-13, EP-31; LS.02.01.20 EP-27, EP-28; LS.02.01.30 EP-11, EP-19; LS.02.02.30 EP-23; LS.02.01.35 EP-13a; and LS.02.01.50 EP-8.
3. Conduct document reviews with supervisors and staff. These reviews should check that the appropriate tests, tasks and inspections were performed correctly and on schedule and that any deficiencies discovered were corrected and recorded in a timely fashion.
4. Practice Code J compliance drills to ensure complete problem discovery and resolution. Make sure to thoroughly plan these drills, minimizing the hassle by creating organized checklists of common problem areas to be examined.

Don’t neglect these basic steps. Once you have this proper evaluation framework in place, you’re well on your way to assuring your facility’s top Joint Commission certification. If you’re interested in doing even more to assure your building’s success at survey time or in gaining more customized feedback from an expert panel of compliance specialists, contact Vanguard Resources directly.

Educational institutes throughout the country have revamped menus to include more healthy options, more dietary alternatives and more allergy conscious food selections. The program change often proves successful with those it impacts and it’s no wonder why: visiting or working at a facility has become not only about the company’s services, but also about the experience it provides to visitors and employees. On campuses, healthier and more varied menus have improved this experience, affecting dining hall hours and, in some cases, enrollment.

There’s a lot of competition out there in education and every aspect of the visitor experience matters. Great, nutritious, varied food has become a distinguishing factor in this competitive industry. Health care, senior living and retirement community facility managers would do well to learn from the lessons of educational institutions.

Join the forefront of the onsite dining innovation; regardless of your industry, focus on improving your site visitor’s experience with you, and continue to attract the traffic and revenues you seek.

For more advice on facility and program enhancements, please contact the experts at Vanguard Resources.

The following strategies will direct health care facility managers to optimize opportunities of change to garner the best results for their individual facilities:

• Plan for change ahead of time. Factors like the economy, industry changes, new technology and continuing cost-efficiency methods should be anticipated and planned for in advance.
• Maintain a sense of urgency. Do not become comfortable or complacent.
• Establish a guiding coalition for change that includes C-level executives.
• Meet with facility department leaders to discuss and solidify the ultimate end vision and strategy.
• Maintain ongoing communication between various levels within your facility organization.
• Empower employees to take individual ownership of facility changes through tangible awards or incentives.
• Understand that successful changes take years to become standardized behavior. Focus your plan and achieve progress through short-term goal setting, achievement and rewards.
• Let new changes drive other necessary operation alterations.
• Encourage a culture of innovation from all personnel, at all levels.

Follow these steps when implementing changes within your facility. For more detailed information regarding instituting change within your own organization, please contact a Vanguard Resources representative.